Andre Vacha



︎    andre-vacha
︎    andre@uni.minerva.edu


I’m a design technologist who uses the design process to ground product development in a philosophy comprising core values and design principles. 

I studied Data Science at Minerva University, so I had to learn these skills on-the-fly at Deepcore, Softbank’s Applied AI subsidiary, and DeSci Labs, where I worked on tools for academic search, collaborative peer review and  publishing research.

Since leaving the decentralized science space, I’ve shifted my attention inwards. For a year and a half, I’ve practiced meditation almost daily, and seen mindfulness grow from an interest to a philosophy of being. 

I see little of the way I desire to live (in short, with presence, awareness and compassion) supported by the design of the interfaces I live by. I intend to change that, beginning with pond.




Reading List

slow-living and world-building,  tech criticism and design ethics, media ecologies and humane interfaces. 

  1. Stuck On The Platform by Geert Lovink. Notes here.
  2. Radical Technologies by Adam Greenfield 
  3. Ways of Being by James Bridle 
  4. maybe its not so bad by Carla Ostmann 
  5. The User Condition by Silvio Lorusso. Notes here.
  6. Strangers To Ourselves by Rachel Aviv 
  7. The Humane Interface by Jef Raskin. Notes here.
  8. Perfect Days by Wim Wenders 
  9. Orality and Literacy by Walter Ong 
  10. Can You Imagine by Sublime. Notes here.


Inspirations

  1. are.na, a toolkit for assembling new worlds from the scraps of old ones
  2. kinopio, a spatial note taking tool for visually collecting and connecting your thoughts
  3. Modem Works, office for design and innovation with an end date
  4. dan-ball Powder Game (2006), a browser-based multiplayer physics simulator



︎ Updated May-2025